Boy, 15, Is Stabbed To Death In the Bronx

By KAREEM FAHIM and JANON FISHER

Published: February 27, 2006

A 15-year-old boy was fatally stabbed on Saturday evening just outside his Bronx home as he returned from walking a friend to a bus stop, the police said.

Shortly before 7 p.m., outside the Morris Heights building where he lived in an apartment with his mother, the boy, Edwin Owusu-Hammond, was stabbed three times, in the chest, abdomen and wrist, the police said. They said that they did not have any suspects or know the motive for the attack.

Edwin made it home, with enough strength to bang on his own door, before collapsing in his mother's arms.

''I was holding him,'' said his mother, Patricia Hammond-Church, 42. ''I was hoping against hope that he would make it.'' She pressed his hands over the stab wound on his abdomen, not even noticing the wound to his chest, she said

''I saw his eyes dilating, and then I knew,'' she said. Edwin, her only son, was taken to Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center, and pronounced dead, in the hospital where he had been born.

Puzzled detectives searched for witnesses, to help solve a crime of the most troubling sort: the killing of a child who avoided drugs, gangs and the attention of the police. Edwin, who came to New York from Ghana in October, did not have a criminal record, the police said.

At his high school, All Hallows High School in the Bronx, Edwin, a 10th grader, earned solid grades and was a hit with his classmates, school officials said. ''He had a great smile,'' said John Ford, the school's director of guidance.

And there were no apparent clues to be found in the carefree hours Edwin spent with a friend before he was killed.

Edwin and the friend, Duke Afihene-Asamoah, 16, did their laundry at Duke's house, about a mile away, and then Edwin fretted about a homework assignment he had not completed, for his history class.

Like Edwin, Duke was born in the United States, and had also lived in Ghana.

At about 4 p.m., the boys went to Ms. Hammond-Church's house -- she is a chef -- for some chicken and rice, Duke said.

After finishing a round of video soccer, at 6:30, Edwin walked Duke to the bus stop a block away on University Avenue.

As they walked, Edwin chatted with a girl on his cellphone, Duke said, and then they said goodbye to each other at the bus stop. ''He said he was going to walk around a little before he went home,'' Duke said.

Investigators found a kitchen knife across the street from the scene of the stabbing but said that it did not appear that Edwin had been robbed: he still had his cellphone. They removed a computer from the apartment, but it was unclear yesterday whether that held any clues.

It was the third killing this year in the 46th Precinct, which includes the Fordham, University Heights, Morris Heights and Mount Hope neighborhoods. Residents said that there was a house known for drug activity nearby and that cars parked on local streets were often broken into.

Ms. Hammond-Church said she brought Edwin to the city in October, after he had been unable to gain admission to a school in Accra, Ghana, where he had been living with her sister.

''He never complained that he was scared in the neighborhood,'' she said.

Photo: Edwin Hammond, 15, who died after being stabbed outside his building in Morris Heights.